Highlights

• Dr. Baskaran exposes China's systematic suppression of critical mineral prices, forcing strategic project shutdowns in the US, Australia, and beyond.
• The report recommends creating an 'anchor market' through the Minerals Security Partnership to shift global pricing power away from Beijing.
• Reclaiming mineral supply chain leverage requires coordinated tariffs, investment controls, and sustained capital investment in upstream projects.

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Dr. Gracelin Baskaran, Director of the Critical Minerals Program for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), continues her prolific and insightful work with a timely commentary (opens in a new tab) on mineral market manipulation and economic security. Her June 12, 2025, report—Building a New Market to Counter Chinese Mineral Market Manipulation—lays out a detailed and practical framework to challenge Beijing’s grip on global mineral supply chains.

Realities on the Ground

Baskaran’s central argument—that China systematically suppresses critical mineral prices to undercut competitors—is supported by stark pricing data. Cobalt, nickel, and lithium have plummeted 59% to 87% in price since 2022, forcing shutdowns of strategic projects in the United States, Australia, and New Caledonia. She cites specific closures, such as Jervois’ cobalt mine in Idaho and BHP’s Nickel West in Australia, confirming the chilling effect of China’s pricing tactics on Western capacity.

Crucially, Baskaran demonstrates that Chinese firms—often state-backed—operate at artificially low or even negative margins, propped up by subsidies and opaque capital channels. The collapse in neodymium-praseodymium oxide pricing below $60/kg, rendering half of non-Chinese REE projects unviable, illustrates how pricing suppression serves Beijing’s long game.

Her policy prescriptions are both credible and actionable:

• Harmonized tariffs across allied nations
• Gradually increasing sourcing quotas for mineral inputs
• Strengthened investment screening mechanisms to block Chinese acquisitions of Western assets

Baskaran smartly advocates building an "anchor market" via the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) or G7+ frameworks, leveraging market size and unified policy tools to shift global pricing power away from Beijing.

A Minor Caveat

While Baskaran’s report is firmly grounded in economic logic and verifiable events, it does carry a speculative edge regarding China’s intentions and predictability. The assertion that Beijing “is expected to continue manipulating” markets implies a certainty of future behavior not entirely provable. While consistent with past actions, such forecasting should be flagged as an inference, not a verified plan.  One could argue that the recent disruptions, for example, were triggered on the other side of the Pacific in Washington DC.  There is also an implicit moral framing, positioning China as a perpetual rule-breaker versus the West as a victim of unfair tactics. While this may reflect strategic realities, it downplays Western complicity in decades of outsourcing, lax regulation, and underinvestment in mining and refining. Readers should be aware that industrial policy failures in the U.S. and EU are part of the reason Chinese firms dominate today. Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx) continues to contemplate the decades of deep involvement by political and economic elites in what has become this unfolding reality on the ground. A system emerged that benefited both sides, or at least some of their interests.

A Sound Strategy with Global Implications

Baskaran’s commentary is among the most practical and data-rich blueprints for rebalancing mineral markets to date. Her proposal for a shared anchor market—coordinating tariffs, quotas, and investment controls—provides a realistic path to reclaiming leverage from China.

But execution will require more than alignment on paper. It will demand hard political coordination across diverse economies, sustained capital flows into upstream projects, and a cultural shift away from dependence on Chinese refining and magnet production.

Rare Earth Exchanges endorses what certainly seems like a framework as a critical step in building the industrial backbone of a post-China supply chain.